WAYS TO RAISE HAPPY TEENS
Helping them navigate their journey from childhood to adolescence.
Written by Dr. Madiha Khan
HOW TO RAISE HAPPY TEENS Teenage is that time of life when a child is slowly walking into adulthood. It is a time when they are trying to discover who they are. They are exploring a lot of different concepts and forming their identities based on what they believe in. This is also the time when they are experiencing many different physiological changes including psychological, physical, neurochemical and hormonal changes. And to make matters even more complicated, the areas of their brain which are supposed to help with decision making and executive functioning are not yet fully developed, thus sometimes leading to poor decision making and lack of impulse control. So, as parents, how do we support our children through these transitional years? How do we help them navigate through and understand these complicated changes when we’re facing our own set of difficulties dealing with their behavior and newly formed attitude? These are some ways we can modify our parenting methods as our children enter their teen years. Communication: Healthy communication is the most essential tool that can be used to improve the relationship between parents and their teenager child. What we must understand though is that the style of communication needs to change, as our children grow older. Teenagers don’t respond well to information-based communication. Lecturing, relating anecdotes or giving personal examples is not going to be helpful. What does help is open and honest communication done in a respectful and understanding way. Teenagers want to be treated with respect more than anything else and will react very negatively to derogatory or humiliating tones or words. Genuinely try to understand their perspective, calmly engage with them to make them realize that you understand their point even if you don’t agree with it and most importantly, empathize with their frustrations. This is the ideal way to communicate with your teen.
Authority: Another major change in parenting style that needs to transform as teenage approaches is about the way we impose authority on them. Parenting of younger children is different. It is about rulemaking and letting children know who’s in charge so they learn about healthy discipline and do not manipulate or control their parents. But, as soon as children enter teenage, the more authoritarian your parenting style, the more distant and rebellious your child will become. This is the time when parents need to let go of some of the control and allow them to make decisions. Of course, these decisions will always be under the parents’ guidance but they don’t have to be yours to impose on them in the first place. This can be the hardest change to accept because as parents we believe we always know what’s best for our children. However, we need to realize that unless we allow them to make mistakes and learn from them while under our guidance, we cannot expect them to grow up into independent and wise adults.
Conflicts:
Children learn less from words and more from actions. We need to model the right behavior for our teenagers to teach them how to deal with conflict and the best way of doing this is to not become reactive in our conflicts with them. Knowing which cause is worth fighting for is important. If your teenager has not picked up their socks that day, is a full-blown argument and threat of punishments really necessary? or can a gentle reminder be used instead? If an argument is heating up, try to de-escalate it by remaining calm and if you feel emotions rising quickly, then walk away to get some space. It’s not always easy but the best message to give a teenager is that no matter how frustrated we are about a situation, we don’t have to become loud or aggressive while expressing our feelings.Consistency:
While it’s important to let teenagers be more independent, allowing them to make some of their own decisions under parental guidance, it is equally important to have some structure, boundaries and limits in their life with consistency. Teenagers will benefit from having a structured routine including bed-time (can be decided with mutual agreement), curfew time, family time and limitation of screen time and social media usage. As long as these rules are consistent, reasonable and the child still feels like they had some input in the formation of these rules, this should work. (Mostly!)With the above-mentioned techniques, I believe we can truly help ourselves and our children navigate through this difficult yet precious journey from childhood into adulthood with everyone’s sanity maintained!
Madiha Khan, MD - Psychiatrist
Dr. Madiha Khan is an American board certified psychiatrist skilled in evidence based psychiatry, psychotherapy and women’s mental health.
Do you need assistance?
